He, his wife and their three children were among the lucky 3,000-plus families with little or no land that were awarded private plots on eight new social land concessions set up by the Ministry of Land Management since 2008 with help—and $12.7 million—from the World Bank and Germany’s foreign aid agency, GIZ.

But Mr. Sal was also unlucky, because his 2 hectares on the Ti Po II concession are in the middle of a forest.

“I have no money to clear it,” he said Wednesday, standing next to his modest stilt home on the forest’s edge. “I am very poor, so every day I work for someone else to make money to support my family.”

Mr. Sal cannot afford to hire others to clear the land, so he chips away at it himself when he can. But that’s not often, because he is usually away working on someone else’s cassava or rubber plantation to earn a living.

Though happy to have the land, he said his life has not improved since moving onto the concession three years ago.

“For some people, it is unfair; some got good land and some got bad land,” he said. “I know many families that did not stay because they could not farm their land.”

A new study of the project released Wednesday by rights group Licadho, “On Stony Ground: A look into social land concessions,” says Mr. Sal is not alone.

After visiting all eight sites between October and March, Licadho says the project, which wrapped up in March, has so far mostly failed to deliver on its goals and left most of the families little to no better off.

It urges against using the experience as a model for a planned second phase which, if approved by the World Bank, would effectively lift a freeze on new lending to Cambodia the Bank imposed four years ago because of the government’s poor record on land rights.

“While additional support is needed to meet the promises of reduced poverty and increased food security for many of the families supported by LASED [Land Allocation for Social and Economic Development], the World Bank and GIZ first need to acknowledge that the project is far from a replicable model, and nowhere near a success story by any standards,” the report says.

Licadho’s findings also contrast sharply with the Bank’s own glowing opinion of its work on the project, which—on paper, at least—doled out 10,000 hectares of land to the families across the eight concessions in three provinces: Kompong Cham, Kompong Thom and Kratie.

In its last review of the project, in December, the World Bank gave itself solid marks across the board. It said all four of its main goals had been met. The more than 3,000 families had all been assigned land for homes, farms, or both, and nearly 60 percent of them had moved in. Of the families that had moved in, the Bank said all of them had started farming and that their incomes had, on average, more than quadrupled.

“The activities and accomplishments have provided good lessons learned for the identification, development and sustainability of future [social land concession] sites,” the Bank said at the time.

But Licadho said the reality for many of the families at all but one of the sites is not so rosy. It says many of the families complained of land that was too sandy or rocky to farm, or covered in forest they lacked the means to clear, of plots mired in land disputes, and of sites missing promised infrastructure, schools and clinics.

“Numerous villagers at seven of the eight sites reported limited ability to use the allocated agricultural plots and hence gained no significant improvement in terms of food security,” the report says. “As a result, poverty reduction was not achieved at the end of the project for the majority of the land recipients.”

According to the report, the government knew that at least two of the chosen sites were mostly covered with “poor” soil as early as 2006—two years before the project even began—thanks to a joint study by international consultants and local officials.

Licadho says some families have been forced to take on new debt to get by, find work as day laborers because their new farms were failing, or turn to logging.

As a consequence, the rights group says, some families have given up on the concessions and left. Based on its visits, it estimates that fewer than half of the 3,000 families assigned plots were occupying them, well below the nearly 60 percent claimed by the World Bank in December.

The Ti Po II concession should be home to 300 families. But Mr. Sal Wednesday estimated that fewer than 100 lived there now.

“Not many families live here,” he said.

Besides working for others to get by, he grows a few fruit trees in his yard and makes charcoal out of what he can log. He has taken out and repaid a $150 loan from a micro-lender and thinks he may have to do it again.

“Maybe, because I am very poor and I cannot make money,” he said.

Like Mr. Sal, Phal Sey, who moved onto the Ti Po II concession with her family three years ago, is surrounded by the remains of the ones who gave up.

“This family and that family did not stay,” she said, pointing to abandoned stilt homes across the narrow dirt road that runs in front of her own. “They built the houses, then they left. I don’t know how many, but many.”

Ms. Sey’s father also received a plot of sandy soil that has yet to prove its worth.

“First, he tried to plant rice, but it died. So he tried watermelon, but it did not grow well,” she said. “That’s why he’s going to try cashews.”

Ms. Sey said her father planned to start planting next month, now that the rain had started to fall regularly. But at the moment, she said, he was away working on someone else’s plantation so the family could survive.

“Since moving here, he has worked for other people,” she said.

But some families here are happy with what they have.

Half a kilometer down the road, Yin Khay said she and her neighbors had been blessed with good plots. Her own family has yet to clear most of their three hectares, and still has to borrow from neighbors now and then to buy rice.

But with money coming in from a small shop that sells snacks and vegetables, Ms. Khay has plans to save up enough to get the rest of their land cleared soon.

“It’s good soil,” she said. “Before, we could only farm on a small piece of land. Now we have more land and we can grow rice.”

Her neighbor, Nout Sam Aun, agreed. After three years here, he still relies on remittances from his two sons, who work at a garment factory in Phnom Penh. And he has seen neighbors unable to farm their own plots because other families that claim the same spot will not let them. But it’s better than what he had, he said.

“I think the social land concession is good because it gives land to people who did not have land, like my family,” he said.

But while getting the plots is one thing, keeping them is another.

One of the main goals of the LASED project is to give the families a piece of land they can own. But Licadho says the scheme is failing on that front, too.

By law, a family must occupy a plot on a social land concession for five consecutive years to qualify for a land title. But families that have been living on the sites for up to six are still waiting. Families that gave up and left, or intend to because their plots are of poor quality, may end up forgoing their claims.

“With the low settlement rates and limited use of agricultural land observed by Licadho…many land recipients risk failing to meet these conditions due to poor implementation of the project,” Licadho said. “Tenure security is by no means guaranteed for a sizeable part of the more than 3,000 land recipients.”

The World Bank did not reply to requests for comment. GIZ country director Adelbert Eberhardt declined to comment and said the request had been forwarded to the German Embassy, which also did not reply.

At the Ministry of Land Management, which is ultimately in charge of the project, spokesman Cheam Sophalmakara said the ministry was not aware of any of the problems the families say they are facing on the concessions.

“We require people who receive the social land concessions to follow the conditions and obligations, and if it is hard for them to follow the obligations, they should make a report and we will not ignore them,” he said.

Mr. Sophalmakara said plans for more roads, wells, houses, schools and clinics at the sites were underway. As for Licadho, he said the rights group was ill informed.

“Licadho should take a seat and talk instead of criticize the work of the experts. Our experts have received positive feedback, and I think the donors would not continue [the project] if it was not good enough,” he said.

In a statement accompanying its report, Licadho says both the government and the donors are to blame—the government for giving the families poor land, the donors for telling the government that the project is working and ready to be scaled up.

“The World Bank and GIZ cannot continue to deceive the public and other stakeholders,” Licadho director Naly Pilorge said in the statement.

The World Bank is preparing a second, $27-million phase to the project that would improve on the eight sites already established and add seven more.

To get started, though, the Bank will have to lift its moratorium on new lending to Cambodia, a proposal mired in its own controversy.

The World Bank imposed the lending freeze in 2011 in protest over the way the Land Management Ministry—the Bank’s future partner in any second phase of the LASED project—was doling out land titles.

Some 3,000 families were forced out of their homes in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood because the ministry refused to let them apply. The Bank said it would not lift its freeze until the Boeng Kak dispute was settled, a condition the government appears unwilling to meet.

A seven-year project funded by Germany and the World Bank to give secure and fertile land to some of the country’s poorest families has so far mostly failed to deliver on its goals and left most of the families no better off, according to a new study.

The study by rights group Licadho, “On Stony Ground: A look into social land concessions,” contradicts the World Bank’s own glowing review of its work.

Licadho urges against using the project as a model for a planned second phase, which, if approved, would effectively lift a freeze on new lending to Cambodia the Bank imposed four years ago, precisely because of the government’s poor record on land rights.

“While additional support is needed to meet the promises of reduced poverty and increased food security for many of the families supported by LASED [Land Allocation for Social and Economic Development], the World Bank and GIZ [Germany’s foreign aid agency] first need to acknowledge that the project is far from a replicable model, and nowhere near a success story by any standards,” the report said.

In 2008, Germany and the World Bank put up a combined $12.7 million—most of it came from the Bank—to find 10,000 hectares across the country to give to more than 3,000 poor families with little or no land. With the Land Management Ministry’s help, they eventually secured eight social land concessions in three provinces: Kompong Cham, Kompong Thom and Kratie.

In its last review of the project, in December, three months before it ended, the World Bank gave itself solid marks across the board. It said all four of its main goals had been met. The 3,000-plus families had all been assigned land for homes, farms, or both, and nearly 60 percent of them had moved in. Of the families who had moved in, the Bank said all of them had started farming and that their incomes had, on average, more than quadrupled.

“The activities and accomplishments have provided good lessons learned for the identification, development and sustainability of future [social land concession] sites,” the Bank said at the time.

But Licadho, which visited all eight concessions between October and March, says the reality for many of the families at all but one of the sites is not so rosy. It says many of the families complained of land that was too sandy or rocky to farm, or covered in forest they lacked the tools to clear, plots mired in land disputes, and sites missing promised infrastructure, schools or clinics.

“Numerous villagers at seven of the eight sites reported limited ability to use the allocated agricultural plots and hence gained no significant improvement in terms of food security,” it said. “As a result, poverty reduction was not achieved at the end of the project for the majority of the land recipients.”

According to the report, the government knew that at least two of the chosen sites were mostly covered with “poor” soil as early as 2006—two years before the project even began—thanks to a joint study by international consultants and local officials.

Licadho says some families have been forced to take on new debt to get by, find work as day laborers because their new farms were failing, or turn to logging.

As a consequence, the rights group says, some families have given up on the concessions and left. Based on its visits, it estimates that fewer than half of the families assigned plots were occupying them, well below the nearly 60 percent previously claimed by the World Bank.

One of the main goals of the LASED project is to give the families a piece of land they can own. But Licadho says the scheme is failing on that front, too.

By law, a family must occupy a plot on a social land concession for five consecutive years to qualify for a land title. But families that have been living on the sites for up to six are still waiting. Families that gave up and left, or intend to because their plots are of poor quality, may never receive a title.

Some families have struggled to use their plots because they are claimed by someone else.

“With the low settlement rates and limited use of agricultural land observed by Licadho…many land recipients risk failing to meet these conditions due to poor implementation of the project,” Licadho said. “Tenure security is by no means guaranteed for a sizeable part of the more than 3,000 land recipients.”

Officials at the Ministry of Land Management could not be reached yesterday. Neither the World Bank nor GIZ responded a request for comment.

Due to its shortfalls, Licadho said, the project “has failed to achieve the levels of success required to be considered a replicable model to reduce poverty and increase food security for rural landless and poor Cambodians.”

But that is exactly what is happening.

In a 2014 report on the project, Germany said the Cambodian government was already replicating the approach in six provinces.

The World Bank is also preparing a second, $27-million phase to the project that would improve the eight sites already established and add seven more.

To get started, though, the Bank will have to lift its moratorium on new lending to Cambodia, a proposal mired in its own controversy.

The World Bank imposed the lending freeze in 2011 in protest over the way the Land Management Ministry—the Bank’s future partner in any second phase of the LASED project—was doling out land titles. Some 3,000 families were forced out of their homes in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood because the ministry refused to let them apply for titles.

The Bank said it would not lift its lending freeze until the Boeng Kak dispute was settled, a condition the government appears unwilling to meet.

Comments Off on SANTUK DISTRICT, Kompong Thom province – Hang Sal has 2 hectares of fertile land he cannot farm. He, his wife and their three children were among the lucky 3,000-plus families with little or no land that were awarded private plots on eight new social land concessions set up by the Ministry of Land Management since 2008 with help—and $12.7 million—from the World Bank and Germany’s foreign aid agency, GIZ. But Mr. Sal was also unlucky, because his 2 hectares on the Ti Po II concession are in the middle of a forest. “I have no money to clear it,” he said Wednesday, standing next to his modest stilt home on the forest’s edge. “I am very poor, so every day I work for someone else to make money to support my family.” Mr. Sal cannot afford to hire others to clear the land, so he chips away at it himself when he can. But that’s not often, because he is usually away working on someone else’s cassava or rubber plantation to earn a living. Though happy to have the land, he said his life has not improved since moving onto the concession three years ago. “For some people, it is unfair; some got good land and some got bad land,” he said. “I know many families that did not stay because they could not farm their land.” A new study of the project released Wednesday by rights group Licadho, “On Stony Ground: A look into social land concessions,” says Mr. Sal is not alone. After visiting all eight sites between October and March, Licadho says the project, which wrapped up in March, has so far mostly failed to deliver on its goals and left most of the families little to no better off. It urges against using the experience as a model for a planned second phase which, if approved by the World Bank, would effectively lift a freeze on new lending to Cambodia the Bank imposed four years ago because of the government’s poor record on land rights. “While additional support is needed to meet the promises of reduced poverty and increased food security for many of the families supported by LASED [Land Allocation for Social and Economic Development], the World Bank and GIZ first need to acknowledge that the project is far from a replicable model, and nowhere near a success story by any standards,” the report says. Licadho’s findings also contrast sharply with the Bank’s own glowing opinion of its work on the project, which—on paper, at least—doled out 10,000 hectares of land to the families across the eight concessions in three provinces: Kompong Cham, Kompong Thom and Kratie. In its last review of the project, in December, the World Bank gave itself solid marks across the board. It said all four of its main goals had been met. The more than 3,000 families had all been assigned land for homes, farms, or both, and nearly 60 percent of them had moved in. Of the families that had moved in, the Bank said all of them had started farming and that their incomes had, on average, more than quadrupled. “The activities and accomplishments have provided good lessons learned for the identification, development and sustainability of future [social land concession] sites,” the Bank said at the time. But Licadho said the reality for many of the families at all but one of the sites is not so rosy. It says many of the families complained of land that was too sandy or rocky to farm, or covered in forest they lacked the means to clear, of plots mired in land disputes, and of sites missing promised infrastructure, schools and clinics. “Numerous villagers at seven of the eight sites reported limited ability to use the allocated agricultural plots and hence gained no significant improvement in terms of food security,” the report says. “As a result, poverty reduction was not achieved at the end of the project for the majority of the land recipients.” According to the report, the government knew that at least two of the chosen sites were mostly covered with “poor” soil as early as 2006—two years before the project even began—thanks to a joint study by international consultants and local officials. Licadho says some families have been forced to take on new debt to get by, find work as day laborers because their new farms were failing, or turn to logging. As a consequence, the rights group says, some families have given up on the concessions and left. Based on its visits, it estimates that fewer than half of the 3,000 families assigned plots were occupying them, well below the nearly 60 percent claimed by the World Bank in December. The Ti Po II concession should be home to 300 families. But Mr. Sal Wednesday estimated that fewer than 100 lived there now. “Not many families live here,” he said. Besides working for others to get by, he grows a few fruit trees in his yard and makes charcoal out of what he can log. He has taken out and repaid a $150 loan from a micro-lender and thinks he may have to do it again. “Maybe, because I am very poor and I cannot make money,” he said. Like Mr. Sal, Phal Sey, who moved onto the Ti Po II concession with her family three years ago, is surrounded by the remains of the ones who gave up. “This family and that family did not stay,” she said, pointing to abandoned stilt homes across the narrow dirt road that runs in front of her own. “They built the houses, then they left. I don’t know how many, but many.” Ms. Sey’s father also received a plot of sandy soil that has yet to prove its worth. “First, he tried to plant rice, but it died. So he tried watermelon, but it did not grow well,” she said. “That’s why he’s going to try cashews.” Ms. Sey said her father planned to start planting next month, now that the rain had started to fall regularly. But at the moment, she said, he was away working on someone else’s plantation so the family could survive. “Since moving here, he has worked for other people,” she said. But some families here are happy with what they have. Half a kilometer down the road, Yin Khay said she and her neighbors had been blessed with good plots. Her own family has yet to clear most of their three hectares, and still has to borrow from neighbors now and then to buy rice. But with money coming in from a small shop that sells snacks and vegetables, Ms. Khay has plans to save up enough to get the rest of their land cleared soon. “It’s good soil,” she said. “Before, we could only farm on a small piece of land. Now we have more land and we can grow rice.” Her neighbor, Nout Sam Aun, agreed. After three years here, he still relies on remittances from his two sons, who work at a garment factory in Phnom Penh. And he has seen neighbors unable to farm their own plots because other families that claim the same spot will not let them. But it’s better than what he had, he said. “I think the social land concession is good because it gives land to people who did not have land, like my family,” he said. But while getting the plots is one thing, keeping them is another. One of the main goals of the LASED project is to give the families a piece of land they can own. But Licadho says the scheme is failing on that front, too. By law, a family must occupy a plot on a social land concession for five consecutive years to qualify for a land title. But families that have been living on the sites for up to six are still waiting. Families that gave up and left, or intend to because their plots are of poor quality, may end up forgoing their claims. “With the low settlement rates and limited use of agricultural land observed by Licadho…many land recipients risk failing to meet these conditions due to poor implementation of the project,” Licadho said. “Tenure security is by no means guaranteed for a sizeable part of the more than 3,000 land recipients.” The World Bank did not reply to requests for comment. GIZ country director Adelbert Eberhardt declined to comment and said the request had been forwarded to the German Embassy, which also did not reply. At the Ministry of Land Management, which is ultimately in charge of the project, spokesman Cheam Sophalmakara said the ministry was not aware of any of the problems the families say they are facing on the concessions. “We require people who receive the social land concessions to follow the conditions and obligations, and if it is hard for them to follow the obligations, they should make a report and we will not ignore them,” he said. Mr. Sophalmakara said plans for more roads, wells, houses, schools and clinics at the sites were underway. As for Licadho, he said the rights group was ill informed. “Licadho should take a seat and talk instead of criticize the work of the experts. Our experts have received positive feedback, and I think the donors would not continue [the project] if it was not good enough,” he said. In a statement accompanying its report, Licadho says both the government and the donors are to blame—the government for giving the families poor land, the donors for telling the government that the project is working and ready to be scaled up. “The World Bank and GIZ cannot continue to deceive the public and other stakeholders,” Licadho director Naly Pilorge said in the statement. The World Bank is preparing a second, $27-million phase to the project that would improve on the eight sites already established and add seven more. To get started, though, the Bank will have to lift its moratorium on new lending to Cambodia, a proposal mired in its own controversy. The World Bank imposed the lending freeze in 2011 in protest over the way the Land Management Ministry—the Bank’s future partner in any second phase of the LASED project—was doling out land titles. Some 3,000 families were forced out of their homes in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood because the ministry refused to let them apply. The Bank said it would not lift its freeze until the Boeng Kak dispute was settled, a condition the government appears unwilling to meet. | Boeung Kak, Land Depute, The CambodiaDaily | Tagged: boeng Kak, Land Depute, The cambodia daily | Permalink Posted by saveboeungkak

Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the World Bank is not doing enough to help people in Cambodia and elsewhere who are facing government harassment for speaking out against Bank-funded projects gone bad.

In a report released Monday, “At Your Own Risk: Reprisals against critics of World Bank Group projects,” HRW uses the mass eviction of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood as a prime example of the failings of the Bank and its private lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

Anti-eviction activists—including some who were recently freed after being jailed on protest-related charges—demonstrate outside the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday against corruption in the judiciary. (Siv Channa/The Cambodia Daily)

The World Bank has conceded that mistakes it made designing and monitoring a now-defunct land titling project it was funding in Cambodia contributed to the forced eviction of some 3,000 families from Boeng Kak to make way for a CPP senator’s real estate project. Since 2008, residents who have protested against the project have been beaten by police at peaceful protests, detained, and repeatedly convicted and jailed on charges that have been rebuked as politically motivated.

“The World Bank has long said that public participation and accountability are key to the success of the development efforts it funds,” Jessica Evans, HRW’s senior international financial institutions advocate, said in a statement. “But the World Bank’s repeated failure to confront intimidation or harassment of people who criticize its projects risks making a mockery out of these principles.”

According to the report, the Bank’s inspection panel even found cases in some countries where the Bank’s own staff discouraged people from filing complaints against their projects. In Cambodia, Boeng Kak residents said the Bank urged them not to take their complaints of harassment to local NGOs “because criticizing the World Bank and government was ‘their job.’”

In 2002, HRW says, the World Bank spoke out against the Cambodian government’s crackdown on a protest, calling it “unacceptable” and accusing officials of hypocrisy. “Despite similarly brutal crackdowns in recent years,” HRW says, “the World Bank has remained silent.”

In its report, HRW offers the Bank several recommendations, including publicly denouncing any instance of government or corporate reprisal against project critics and urging the unconditional release of those detained on trumped-up charges.

It also recommends more pre-emptive steps, such as taking more care to assess the possibility of future reprisals before committing to a project, and getting the Bank’s corporate and government partners to guarantee that critics will not be harassed.

In Boeng Kak, few residents have been harassed as much as Tep Vanny. Often at the forefront of the protests against the neighborhood’s evictions, she has been repeatedly assaulted by security forces, detained, charged and jailed.

She agreed with HRW that the Bank has done too little to help her and her fellow protesters.

“We wanted to see the World Bank intervene to talk with the government when our people were put in jail, but we have never even seen them come to visit us,” Ms. Vanny said. “They have ignored us.”

In an emailed response to questions on the report, World Bank spokesman Bou Saroeun wrote that the Bank had “strong policies and mechanisms that address many concerns raised by human rights advocacy groups and civil society, and we are open to dialogue on improvements.”

“Fair and peaceful resolution of land conflict is critical to Cambodia’s sustained economic and social development,” he added. “We continue to discuss with the government on how to support the country’s development in a way that benefits all Cambodians.”

Before releasing the report, HRW also approached the World Bank for feedback on its allegations. According to the report, World Bank country manager Alassane Sow denied claims from protesters that he offered to raise their complaints with the U.N. and said he repeatedly encouraged them to “reach out” to local authorities about the land titles they were demanding.

The report adds that Mr. Sow said the reprisals against the Boeng Kak protesters were “not relevant.”

Mr. Saroeun did not address questions about these specific claims in his response.

According to the report, the Bank is developing guidelines on how to respond to reports of reprisals, and the IFC’s ombudsman has promised to consider HRW’s recommendations.

Though the Bank has not taken any obvious steps in reaction to the Cambodian government’s reprisals against Boeng Kak protesters, it did freeze new lending to the country in 2011 in objection to the neighborhood’s forced evictions.

The government reacted to the move by issuing land titles to the roughly 700 families who had yet to leave the neighborhood, letting them keep their homes. But it also downplayed the impact of the freeze, insisting that other international donors would happily fill in the funding gap.

Given China’s rise as a key donor and investor in Cambodia, observers say the government has a point.

But Phil Robertson, HRW’s deputy Asia director, said the government was still keen to keep the World Bank around, if only for the confidence its presence gives foreign investors.

“The Cambodian government knows that any departure of the World Bank from Cambodia would be a major blow to the confidence of investors thinking about directly investing in the country. Money is the ultimate king in Cambodia, and continuing investment inflows is a key part of ensuring that money keeps on coming in,” he said by email.

“The World Bank should be able to use that reality as sufficient leverage to get protesters released from custody and demand other civil society activists not be targeted.”

The pending arrival of China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a rival to lenders like the World Bank has made fears of their being sidelined in the region more acute. But Mr. Robertson said the Investment Bank, which has yet to declare its rights safeguard policies, still lacked the clout and credibility foreign investors want.

Boeung Kak lake activists hold signs during a protest last year, calling for the World Bank to reconsider a potential loan of $25 million for the development of land concessions. Charlotte Pert

Cambodians who have criticised World Bank-sponsored projects have been subject to persecution and violent crackdowns by security forces, all while the international financial institution remains largely silent on the matter, a new report by Human Rights Watch alleges.

The report, At Your Own Risk, details how despite its own research turning up evidence of threats, intimidation and harm, the World Bank has largely failed to address abuses to communities in Cambodia – and elsewhere – in cases where locals have protested bank-affiliated developments.

“The World Bank has long said that public participation and accountability are key to the success of the development efforts it funds,” Jessica Evans, senior international financial institutions advocate at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“But the World Bank’s repeated failure to confront intimidation or harassment of people who criticize its projects risks making a mockery out of these principles.”

The report mentions several examples in the Kingdom of community members suffering retaliation for criticism.

In Ratanakkiri, for instance, 17 villages lodged a complaint with the International Finance Corporation’s Office of the Compliance Advisor Ombudsman (CAO) about Vietnamese company Hoang Anh Gia Lai threatening their access to water and land, only to be threatened by local authorities about their advocacy.

When addressed, one community member quoted a CAO representative as saying, “they would try” to do something about the threat “but might not have much power”.

The report goes on to detail a case study on the Boeung Kak lake evictions.

It describes how Cambodian security personnel systematically pressured and imprisoned community members that protested their eviction over the past seven years.

Furthermore, the report says that an internal investigation proved there was “a direct link between the Bank-financed $23.4 million Land Management and Administration Project in Cambodia . . . and the forced evictions suffered by [Boeung Kak residents]”.

Though the bank in 2011 froze all new funds for the government until a proper resolution was reached for the evictees and “responded strongly against the government’s forcible eviction”, the bank still refused to actively get involved in the dispute.

Boeung Kak activist Tep Vanny said yesterday she believed that the government ordered security guards to deal with protesters harshly precisely because the World Bank had dried up its funding.

“The government got angry about the lack of money and took their anger out on the community,” she said, adding that now the World Bank was not in a strong enough position to champion those who were evicted.

Still, Stella Anastasia, technical assistant for rights group Adhoc, said the World Bank should use its clout to right past wrongs.

“The World Bank should take responsibility for the harm caused to the Boeung Kak Lake community, and this should include finding the courage to publicly speak out against the unlawful imprisonment of its activists,” she said.

A World Bank spokesperson reached last night via email rejected the notion that the bank stood idly by amid abuses.

“When allegations of reprisal are brought to our attention, we work – within the scope of our mandate – with appropriate parties to try to address them.

Where links between reprisals and WBG-financed projects can be established, we have taken action as documented by past cases and we will continue to do so.”

About 30 former residents of the Boeung Kak Lake community yesterday gathered near the National Assembly to put a curse on former Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema over claims that he caused them to lose their lands.

During the event, people set up funeral banners and pictures showing the destruction of their former homes, as well as demolished houses from Borei Keila – another displaced community in the capital. Participants also stuck photos of Chuktema next to infamous war criminal Kaing Guek Eav, the Khmer Rouge-era operator of the Tuol Sleng detention centre populary known as “Duch”.

Sear Naret, 56, a representative of the displaced residents, said they wished to put a hex on Chuktema, now a member of parliament with the ruling Cambodian People’s Party, so he would die a slow death for his role in filling the lake.

“We curse Kep Chuktema and other corrupt officials with death, caused by their ambition and the corruption they have committed,” he said. “The gods will punish them with hardship and destruction, especially Kep Chuktema; [they will] be fired from their current positions soon.”

Chum Ngarn, a representative of the Borei Keila community, said thousands of families in the capital lost their land due to the irresponsibility of the city’s leadership. “During [Kep Chuktema’s] time, poor community members were evicted, arrested, charged and sent to jail because of protests to protect their lands,” she said.

Afterward, participants gathered in front of the Assembly to ask for information about a petition they had filed to demand intervention. Lawmaker Lork Kheng called for patience.

Members of the imprisoned Boeung Kak Lake community celebrate their release yesterday at a ceremony at Kem Sokha’s home. PHOTO SUPPLIED

Five months behind bars has done nothing to deter Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak activists from taking their demands to the streets.

Just one day after their release from the capital’s Prey Sar prison, the female activists – often at the helm of Phnom Penh demonstrations – vowed yesterday to continue protesting for “as long as land disputes and social injustices remain”.

“I will still advocate and peacefully protest to demand solutions and justice for all the victims in Cambodian society, even if I will be imprisoned or killed by the authorities,” Boeung Kak leader Tep Vanny told the Post from her home yesterday.

Vanny and six other Boeung Kak activists were arrested during a protest in November, and convicted a day later for violating the Traffic Law by using a wooden bed to block the capital’s Monivong Boulevard.

On the day of the women’s trial, another two Boeung Kak women were arrested, along with Phoung Sopheap, a land activist from Phnom Penh’s airport community, and Buddhist monk Soeun Hai.

The four, who had been protesting outside the courtroom, were also convicted at breakneck speed for “intentionally inciting violence against a public authority”.

Vanny yesterday expressed her gratitude at the group’s release, which was granted under King Norodom Sihamoni’s annual Khmer New Year royal pardon following negotiations between Prime Minister Hun Sen and opposition leader Sam Rainsy.

But, she said, they should never have been arrested in the first place.

Dismissing claims from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party that the women had “accepted their guilt,” Vanny said they had in fact been used by the party as pawns in a political power play.

“The ruling party arrested and accused us, the land activists, as a pretext to put pressure on the opposition to accept [conditions for] the reformed National Election Committee. But we are not political activists, we are just community land rights protesters,” she said.

Vanny, like many of the other released activists, spent more than a month in prison in 2012 for obstructing public officials and illegally occupying land in a protest against Boeung Kak developer Shukaku. This time around, she said, life behind bars was even more difficult.

“One day, some of our members fainted and were taken to hospital, but the prison guards said they had pretended. Later on, they locked the doors and wouldn’t let us outside to get some air, saying we are Boeung Kak women and like inciting violence,” she said.

Just a week ago, Vanny and two of the other activists hit their heads against the wall until they fell unconscious after being denied any time outside of their cell.

The guards had said “if we were furious and wanted to commit suicide, please do”, she recalled.

Seventy-six-year-old Nget Khun echoed Vanny’s complaints.

Khun – who is known universally as “Mummy” – said the cell she shared with more than 60 other inmates got unbearably hot. But Prey Sar’s months-long water shortage and “dictatorial” guards meant that she could neither get water to cool herself, nor leave to get fresh air.

“The food in jail is not enough … and sleeping is difficult, too; sometimes I slept sitting with my knees upright, and sometimes I slept on the floor,” she added.

Kong Chantha, another of the released Boeung Kak activists, said guards tried to turn other inmates against them by using them as the reason that all prisoners were being confined in their cells.

Kuy Bunsorn, director general of the Interior Ministry’s General Department of Prisons, could not be reached yesterday.

While the 11 activists were released on Saturday, others believed to be held for political reasons, including opposition activists and monks, are expected to be released following a bail hearing today.

Opposition member “Meach Sovannara and other activists including two monks will be released tomorrow after the municipal court opens a hearing about their case,” CNRP lawmaker Eng Chhai Eang said in a statement yesterday.

A government official rejected calls from a pair of NGOs on Tuesday to do more for Phnom Penh’s slums amid what they described as an opaque land-titling system that has routinely failed poor communities.

In a joint report, “The Exclusion of Urban Poor Communities From Systematic Land Registration in Phnom Penh,” World Vision and the NGO Forum seek to shed light on a titling system that has left many of the city’s slums behind.

Women sit next to the tracks of an abandoned railway line that runs through a slum in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district on Tuesday. (Siv Channa/The Cambodia Daily)

The municipal government last year said there were 503 slum communities within city limits, which are home to more than 24,000 families, or about 140,000 people out of a total population of roughly 2 million. For their report, the NGOs interviewed about 60 families in 12 slums that the government has not put through the land-registration process.

According to the report, 10 of the 12 communities were officially informed that they would not be registered, but only half were given a reason. Even when they were offered an explanation, it was usually that the area was “too complex” or had “unclear status,” the report adds, neither of which has a legal definition in Cambodia.

“The use of such justification to arbitrarily exclude families with claims of possession…presents a significant loophole that may permit land grabbing by powerful parties at the expense of urban poor communities,” it says.

A prime example is Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood, whose residents were denied a chance at titles after City Hall leased the site in 2007 to CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin and later forced some 3,000 families out of their homes.

World Vision and the NGO Forum said the 12 slums they surveyed for the report were not facing eviction. But they said most families were still struggling to feed themselves and that the lack of land titles was keeping them from taking out low-interest bank loans that could help pull them out of poverty.

Of the dozen slums, they said, 11 were probably denied a chance at titles because they sat on state public land, which by law cannot be titled.

But NGO Forum director Tek Vannara said the government should still take responsibility for those families because it let them put down roots without letting them know that they legally could not.

“We ask the government to improve the sites and reconsider [titles] for them even though they are living illegally,” he said by telephone after the report’s launch.

The NGOs want to see the government go back to the communities left out of the registration process and offer a chance at titles to families with legitimate claims or that were denied a chance in the first place because of public infrastructure projects that encroached on their land.

At the report’s launch, however, Soun Sopha, the Land Management Ministry’s land administration director, denied that the government had treated any of the communities unfairly.

“The ministry cannot accept this report,” Mr. Sopha said. “We cannot accept it because…the communities are living on public land that cannot be registered.”

“There is no discrimination,” he added. “If you are rich or poor, short or tall, you will be registered if you comply with the land law.”